The background description includes information that may be useful in understanding the present invention. It is not an admission that any of the information provided in this application is prior art or relevant to the presently claimed invention, or that any publication specifically or implicitly referenced is prior art.
Broadcasting content, live or otherwise, is not new. But as Internet-based systems and services continue to develop, new needs arise that drive new innovation. For example, as more and more people move away from traditional television with cable subscriptions, they are increasingly switching to streaming services. And while streaming services began by facilitating access to on-demand, pre-recorded content, live content has become more widely available online in recent years.
With the ability to stream live content, there arose a need to develop new ways to handle that content from a content distributor's perspective. For example, during a live broadcast of a sporting event, commercial breaks must be added in strategically to coincide with events in the sporting event (e.g., during a timeout). To determine when a commercial break should be added, it can help to have a human operator determining when those breaks should be inserted into a live stream.
Online live streams are different from traditional live streams at least because the content for advertisements and the live broadcasting content in an online stream often come from different sources. Because a broadcast must change from one video source to another when switching from content to advertisement, there is a need for new innovation that facilitates seamless switching between different video streams so that viewers experience no interruption in their viewing experience.
One way to facilitate handling of live content with advertisements is to create a new data structure that makes it easy to add commercial breaks—regardless of the source of the advertisement stream—and to create easily re-broadcastable content once a live broadcast has concluded.
Thus, there is still a need in the art for improved systems and methods of managing online broadcasts that feature advertisements, especially when advertisement timing is unknown at the outset of a broadcast such as in a live broadcast.